While the reception of social support at work is generally considered a net positive for employees, researchers have identified that particular kinds of social support, such as unhelpful workplace social support (UWSS), tend to evoke stress and contribute to strain for recipients. Although (Gray et al. Work and Stress , 34 (4), 359–385, 2020 ), when validating the novel UWSS measure, uncovered relations between UWSS and various outcomes, more research is needed to further understand the impacts of UWSS. Furthermore, the extant social support literature is currently lacking in its understanding of how individual differences strengthen or weaken the relations such support has with strain. Drawing from the Theory of Stress as Offense to Self (Semmer et al. Occupational Health Science , 3 (3), 205–238. 10.1007/s41542-019-00041-5, 2019 ), we, through two studies ( N 1 = 203, N 2 = 277), further explore the relations of UWSS, focusing on behavioral and psychological strain, and examine how these relations are influenced by relevant individual differences (e.g., Big Five traits). Results from our first study replicate key findings from (Gray et al. Work and Stress , 34 (4), 359–385, 2020 ), providing additional validity evidence for the novel measure of UWSS, and demonstrate that UWSS is related to various types of behavioral strain. Our second study shows that the strength of these deleterious relations varies based on characteristics of the recipient of UWSS. Altogether, the present research contributes to the literature on social support as a stressor by elucidating further the effects of UWSS, and, perhaps more importantly, for whom UWSS is particularly deleterious.

Receiving social support is widely considered a positive workplace phenomenon, but what about the employees from whom the support is being sought? Following recent calls from social support scholars, we focus on the "potential support provider" perspective of the social support dynamic and propose that the measure of social burden (Yang et al., 2016) currently used to capture this dynamic is significantly limited. In Study 1, we refine and expand the measure of social burden by constructing and validating a measure of support elicitation experiences (SEE) that distinguishes between emotionally laden SEE (SEE-E; explicit or implicit requests for support with an emotional valence) and instrumental SEE (SEE-I; explicit requests for work-related support). In Study 2, based on Conservation of Resources Theory, we examine how SEE-E and SEE-I differentially relate to work outcomes and explore the potential costs of providing support in response to these behaviors. Results demonstrate that our measure of SEE is an improvement over the social burden measure and support the empirical distinctiveness of emotionally laden (associated with negative outcomes) and instrumental (associated with positive outcomes) support elicitations. In addition, we find some evidence that routinely providing support for both SEE-E and SEE-I carries implications for undesirable workplace behavior. Findings from this research support the notion that there are often differential effects for the kinds of support we elicit from our colleagues and provides researchers with an improved instrument to assess the social support dynamic from the perspective of potential support providers.

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Purpose Using the job–demands resources model as a guide, this study aims to expand the understanding of the boundary conditions of the relation between experienced incivility and instigated incivility. The authors do so by focusing on the unique forms of instigated incivility: hostility, gossip, exclusionary behavior and privacy invasion. Drawing from past research, the authors focus on the personal resources of agreeableness and conscientiousness as individual difference boundary conditions, and the job demands and resources of workload and perceived emotional social support, respectively, as job-related boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach The authors test their hypotheses using two-wave survey data collected from 192 customer service workers and hierarchical moderated multiple regression. Findings Analyses reveal that the relation between experienced incivility and gossip, a distinct type of instigated incivility, is stronger for those who are higher in agreeableness and perceived emotional social support, and weaker for those who report experiencing higher levels of workload. Originality/value This research advances knowledge on incivility by focusing on unique forms of instigated incivility, as opposed to instigated incivility broadly, as outcomes of experienced incivility. In doing so, this research adds nuance to recent findings surrounding the moderating role of personality in the experienced incivility and instigated incivility relation. The authors also report novel findings surrounding the influence of key job demands and resources.

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